Uptown coat, bargain style -- and help with linings and coats

Remember my first Uptown Coat by Favorite Things? It was sort of ... loud? Weird? I don't know, but I still like it. I made the short version the first time around, and I never did get around to photographing it on a person like I promised. Have you felt betrayed?

Well, one day I was hunting for fabulous finds at Savers thrift store and did I ever find one. It was well over three yards of gray, pin-striped wool. Wool. As in, hard to find locally. Wool, as in $25 a yard. I paid a whopping $7.99 total for my 3+ yards.



I decided to make another Uptown Coat, and I even had enough for the long version. I lined it with a red/burgundy lining and made my own fabric-covered buttons, which is very easy to do, by the way.







This time around, I did a few things differently. The first time, I was thrown off by the fact that the pattern didn't really give good instructions on how to finish the bottom front corners of the jacket.

What I did is this: I turned over about a quarter-inch on the jacket hem and sewed. Then I turned that up about another inch and used a blind hem stitch to secure it. I did not sew all the way to either end, but left a few inches -- you'll see why.

Next, I hemmed the lining, about 1.5 inches. As it turns out, this was too much and my lining doesn't fully cover the hem of the jacket.

OK, so next I needed to attach the lining to the coat, so I put right sides together (with collar sandwiched in between, already basted onto the coat) and sewed along one front and across the collar and down the other front. Here's the key: for the bottom corner of the coat, before you sew the lining, turn the hem the other way, so the wrong side is showing and right sides are together. Pin it this way when you sew your lining on. When you're done, clip the corners and flip them around. Now you'll have a nice front, bottom corner.

I'm sure that didn't make much sense without photos. I'll probably do a tutorial on this at some point.

Another problem is that the fabric was really wrinkled, and you can only do so much ironing on wool. I'm hoping the wrinkles relax as the jacket hangs.

After I cut the fabric, I did find a couple of tiny, tiny holes, I suppose from moths. I figured there was no point in throwing away the whole project over a couple of not-even-visible holes, so I took tiny scraps of the wool and used quilt basting spray to patch it on the back side. Then I used a dab of Fray Check. Hopefully, I won't have any problems, or at least not for a while.

And, finally, the jacket would look much better if it were more fitted, or just plain smaller around the top. I did make it according to my measurements, but I think because it's long it just looks quite big and loose on me. It's definitely wearable, though.